


What We Do in the Tower

by rebelmeg, remreader



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Avengers Family, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff and Crack, Found Family, Humor, Multi, Peter Parker is a Mess, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vampires, references to blood drinking and other vampire related stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27157655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg, https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader
Summary: Peter Parker has been having an awkward time as a brand new vampire. But now he's got Tony Stark whisking him off to meet a whole group of weird and hilarious vampires that live in Stark Tower and maybe this won't be so bad after all?
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 102
Collections: Marvel Spookytober Prompts 2020, Pepperony Bingo 2020, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	What We Do in the Tower

**Author's Note:**

> Are you ready for this list of squares and prompts that we ran roughshod over to bring you this fic?
> 
>  **MARVEL SPOOKYTOBER PROMPTS**  
>  October 3rd/Day 3 - eternal relationship  
> October 5th/Day 5 - supernatural beings  
> October 13th/Day 13 - "You know you're not alive, right?"  
> October 28th/Day 28 - kidnapped
> 
>  **TONY STARK BINGO**  
>  Title: What We Do in the Tower  
> Collaborators: newnewyorker93, rebelmeg  
> Card Numbers: 4042 (newnewyorker93), 4034 (rebelmeg)  
> Squares Filled: S4 - forcibly adopted (card 4042)  
> A5 - WTF (card 4034)  
> Ship: Peter & Tony, Pepperony  
> Rating: Gen  
> Major Tags: Vampire AU, Avengers family, crack and humor, unapologetic cherry-picking of vampire lore  
> Summary: Peter Parker has been having an awkward time as a brand new vampire. But now he's got Tony Stark whisking him off to meet a whole group of weird and hilarious vampires that live in Stark Tower and maybe this won't be so bad after all?  
> Word Count: 5185
> 
>  **PEPPERONY BINGO**  
>  Title: What We Do in the Tower  
> Collaborator: newnewyorker93  
> Square Filled: N5 - presumed dead  
> Ship: Peter & Tony, Pepperony  
> Rating: Gen  
> Major Tags: Vampire AU, Avengers family, crack and humor, unapologetic cherry-picking of vampire lore  
> Summary: Peter Parker has been having an awkward time as a brand new vampire. But now he's got Tony Stark whisking him off to meet a whole group of weird and hilarious vampires that live in Stark Tower and maybe this won't be so bad after all?  
> Word Count: 5185

Peter Parker was having a strange week.

First, he'd been turned into a vampire, which was apparently a thing that could actually happen outside of books, movies, and uncomfortably horny teen television shows. Then, before he could even begin to process the implications of _that_ , the next most impossible thing after, you know, _becoming a vampire_ , had happened. He'd met - no, even stranger, he'd been _sought out_ , by Tony Stark.

Yeah. That one. Billionaire genius Tony Stark, the one who had an entire skyscraper with his name on the side of it, the one who had revolutionized at least five separate branches of science and technology.

 _That_ Tony Stark.

It was a bit past dusk and Peter had just slipped out from the campus library where he'd been hiding out all day, waiting for the safety that, from what little he knew of vampires, came with darkness. Thank goodness for autumn and its steadily shortening daylight hours. He was lost in thought as he headed back in the direction of the apartment he shared with his best friend, Ned Leeds, kicking at dried leaves and puzzling over the thorny problem of how to explain any of his current (and presumably permanent) predicament. Even for a chronically overworked nerd of a student like Peter, the excuse of spending all day at the library studying could only last him so long. Besides, he could never _really_ keep anything from Ned.

He hadn't noticed the car following and then pulling up beside him until the driver revved the engine, in the way owners of cool cars so often do, to oh-so-subtly call attention to their sweet ride. And oh boy, was this a sweet ride. Peter had looked longingly at the extremely hot - and undoubtedly ridiculously expensive - sports car for a moment, then jumped a little bit when the window rolled down and the aforementioned Tony Stark grinned at him, peering over a pair of sunglasses despite the late hour and the fact that he was, of course, _in a car_. Maybe it was a rich person thing, or just a Tony Stark thing. The man was quite notoriously eccentric.

“Peter Parker, right?”

He goggled, more than a little bit. “Uh, yeah, I’m-I’m Peter Parker.”

“Tony Stark, nice to meet you. Kind of an odd question for you… you happen to see the sunrise today?”

Peter blinked. “Um… no?”

“Felt a bit peckish if you stared at someone’s neck for too long?”

A cold sweat broke out all over him.

“And most importantly…” Tony’s mouth opened a little wider, revealing canines that were quite a bit longer and pointy than normal. “You got a pair of these too?”

Which was how Peter had ended up in the passenger seat of Tony Stark’s car, on his way to Stark Tower to meet some more “like-minded” friends.

Peter had been to Stark Tower before, a few times in high school on school trips to tour the R&D labs. He'd certainly never been in the private elevator before though, nor the destination to which he and Tony rapidly ascended within it - the penthouse suite right at the very top of the tower. The doors opened out into a spacious room, with a circle of what looked to be extremely comfortable couches in the center. There was a woman sitting curled up on one reading a book, strawberry-blonde hair tied up into a messy bun atop her head.

"Honey, I'm home!" Tony announced cheerfully as he strode out of the elevator. Peter trailed behind, not entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing.

"You're late," the woman chided, without looking up from her book. Peter remembered getting a brief glimpse of her on one of the tower tours, recognized her as Stark Industries' CEO and, as of fairly recently, Tony Stark's wife.

Tony walked up behind her and leaned over the back of the couch to nuzzle her neck and give her a quick peck on the cheek. "Sorry, Pep," he apologized. "Had to pick something up on the way." He pointed, and 'Pep' glanced up, finally noticing Peter. He waved awkwardly as Tony introduced them.

"Peter Parker, this is Pepper Potts; Pepper, Peter—"

"Try saying _that_ five times fast."

Peter (who was honestly still more than a little taken aback by… everything) turned around to see another man walk into the room, smirking.

"Peter Parker picks a peck of pickled Pepper, rolls right off the tongue."

Tony grinned. "And there's my honeybear!" he exclaimed, sounding delighted.

"James Rhodes," the man introduced himself, a bit more precisely. He held out his hand for Peter to shake. "But you can call me Rhodey, most people do. Even Tony, on the rare occasions when he runs out of nicknames."

"Variety is the spice of life, platypus!"

Rhodey just shook his head fondly at that. "So where'd he find you?" he asked Peter.

"Saw him wandering around the Spirit Halloween in that abandoned Toys 'R' Us a couple days ago." Tony answered, before Peter had a chance to respond. "He had The Look, so I did a bit of poking around, had JARVIS do some snooping, and then followed up later."

Peter blushed. He hadn’t known _that_ part! "I was looking for a vampire cape," he admitted sheepishly. "I don't know, I wasn't thinking straight, I guess I figured maybe I needed one now?"

Pepper gave him a sympathetic smile, though he could tell she was trying not to laugh. "We all had some kind of crazy reaction in the beginning. It happens," she reassured him as she gestured for him to sit down. Then a question apparently occurred to her and she turned back to her husband. "Wait, Tony— what were _you_ doing at Spirit Halloween?"

"I was looking for a vampire cape," Tony muttered under his breath. They all stared at him. "It's Halloween," he emphasized, trying futilely to defend himself as the others giggled. "I thought it would be funny! A clever meta-commentary. Or something like that…"

"Okay, we're definitely going to talk more about that later," Pepper said, managing with difficulty to get her laughter under control. "But for now I think Mr. - Parker, was it? - deserves our attention." She refocused back on Peter, who squirmed a bit under her kind, but piercing gaze. "How long have you been a vampire?"

"A week. Well, almost." Peter admitted. "I'm still a bit lost, to be completely honest…"

"Phew," Rhodey whistled as he plopped himself down on one of the other couches and sprawled out over it. "Well, you certainly came to the right place."

"I _brought_ him to the right place, you mean." Tony pointed out as he settled down next to Pepper and beamed when she immediately leaned into him.

"Yes, yes, you're very impressive, dear." Pepper reassured him with a wink and a kiss on the cheek. "Peter? Anything you need to know, just ask. I know this has probably been a _lot_ to take in."

“Right, cool, thanks!” He had to take a second to think, turning his mind from his current baffling situation to the whole baffling vampire thing. “Well, um, I _was_ wondering… do we have to, you know, hunt… people and stuff?” This was the thing Peter had been most worried about. “You guys seem cool and all, but I’m not really down with the whole murder thing…”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Tony laughed. “We have fetish clubs for that now.”

Peter startled so hard he nearly fell off the couch. That was _not_ the answer he’d been expecting. “Oh?” he squeaked.

“Yep! Bruce looped us in on that.” Tony pointed over to a doorway through which another vampire was entering the room, nose buried in a thick textbook as he beelined towards a desk in the corner. “He’s hip to the ways of The Youth.”

Peter had to do (another) double-take. The man Tony had indicated was unquestionably nerdy, middle-aged with salt-and-pepper curly hair and glasses that looked like they came straight out of the ‘80s. He was definitely _not_ someone Peter would have pegged as an expert on blood fetish subcultures. Clearly he needed to re-examine his personal biases. Actually, now that he got a closer look… the man— Bruce looked vaguely familiar.

“C’mon,” Tony stood up and pulled Peter over to meet Bruce. “I’ll introduce you.”

Tony poked the man to get his attention and Bruce finally looked up from his book, blinking a few times and looking somewhat surprised to discover that there were other people in the room. “Hmm? Tony?”

“Yeah, pull your head out of academia for two seconds, I found a newbie!”

The man carefully closed his doorstop of a textbook and glanced at Peter, a mild smile on his face. “Oh, hi. Nice to meet you, I’m Bruce.”

Suddenly, Peter realized why Bruce looked so familiar. “Wait, I do recognize you! You were in my Bio class at the start of the semester.”

“Oh, yeah. That room had been for Advanced Neuro last year, and I forgot the new year had started.”

Peter blinked. “How do you forget that a new school year started?” This was taking absent-mindedness to a whole new level; it was honestly kind of impressive.

Tony grinned and snorted. “Because Bruce has literally spent the last sixty years going to college. Ask him how many PhD’s he has, go on.”

Bruce rolled his eyes as Peter tried to wrap his brain around the idea of _voluntarily_ going to college for sixty years. Before he had a chance to follow-up on Tony's challenge, or Bruce to answer of his own accord, the elevator doors dinged open behind the trio and a whole flock of people- no, _vampires_ spilled out into the penthouse, talking animatedly amongst themselves with the easy familiarity of a tight-knit group of friends. A blur of introductions ensued; Peter met in quick succession - and frantically tried to commit the litany of new names to memory - Natasha, Thor, Steve, Bucky, and Sam. While he was slightly overwhelmed trying to keep up, the others seemed to take his arrival completely in stride, cheerfully greeting him and then one-by-one arranging themselves in what, based on the impressive lack of bickering, Peter assumed were their usual spots on the couch.

"You really are in luck," Tony told Peter after everyone had finished filing in and they were all spread around on the couches. "Everyone's not usually here all at once!" He turned and gave the assembled vampires a bemused look. “Why _are_ you all here?”

“The party.” Thor (who was possibly twice and tall and with three times the muscle mass of Peter) answered promptly.

“What party?”

Bucky, a vampire with an _actual metal arm_ \- probably some sort of advanced robotic prosthetic - that Peter was already itching to get his hands on, looked suddenly confused. “It’s Halloween 2020, right?”

A few of them had to take out their phones and check. “Yes.”

" _Almost_ Halloween," Pepper clarified. The actual holiday was in fact still a few days off, though with the way mortals had lately taken to extending the festivities outward that was really more of a technicality - it was definitely October, and arguably Halloween.

Tony didn’t look any more enlightened. “So...?”

Natasha, a redhead who just kind of exuded an air of danger, had the answers. “You promised us a party. I even put it in my calendar.”

“Oh. When did I do that?”

“Thanksgiving 2015.”

“Was that the time with the turkey that we—”

Steve, a big blond vampire with the shoulder-to-waist ratio of a Dorito, leaned over and slapped his hand over Tony’s mouth. “We _do not speak_ of that Thanksgiving.”

Peter stared around at the group of them in bafflement. He'd expected a group of vampires to have all kinds of secrets, to be moody and dark and spend a lot of time being tragically dramatic. He hadn't realized they'd be quite so... sitcom-y. If nothing else, this gathering was alleviating a lot of his fears about spending eternity in the company of the blood-sucking undead.

“We interrupted earlier, sorry about that." Steve said, pulling his hand off of Tony's mouth and wiping it on his pants. Based on the latter's smug grin, Peter guessed he had pulled a middle school move and licked Steve's palm; some tricks literally never die. "What were you talking about?”

“Oh, just Bruce’s perpetual quest for the answer to life, the universe, and everything. He was gonna give Peter his Number.”

Thor’s eyebrows contracted, “What do Bruce’s sexual partners have to do with school?”

“Not that number!” Tony shouted over the sound of Bucky, Sam, Steve, and Natasha bursting out laughing.

Bruce was smiling and shaking his head as he turned to look at Peter. “Since he’s clearly not going to drop it, I have twenty-six degrees. Working on a couple more, but they’re both in the medical field, so they take longer.”

Peter goggled at him. “How has nobody figured out something's up yet, if you’ve been going to the same college for sixty years?”

“Oh, no, I change every five to ten years, for safety reasons. Though really, people are far less observant than they get credit for. I attended Yale for eight years once, had the same professor three times, all night classes, and he never once remembered my name.”

Peter nodded, understanding. His calculus professor kept calling him 'Tom', for reasons he still didn’t understand. “And nobody ever wonders why you only do night classes?”

“Sometimes they do, but I can do a lot online now. Most people probably just assume I work days, it's not uncommon.”

Sam leaned forward then, a gap in his teeth showing as he grinned at Bruce. “Okay, since we're on the subject, how long did it take? I’ve got a bet going with Bucky.”

Bruce looked confused. “Um… take for what?”

“For you to be known as the campus cryptid.”

“What’s a cryptid?”

“C’mon, man, move with the times.”

Bruce just peered at him flatly through his glasses that Peter suddenly suspected he actually _had_ been wearing since the 80’s. “No.”

The banter continued, some of it too fast for Peter to track, with everyone talking over each other and seeming to carry on several different conversations at once. And, strangely, that put him a little more at ease. It reminded him of the holidays, when he and Aunt May would spend a few days at his Grandma’s house with all the relatives. He knew no one here was technically human, but they kind of just seemed like… people.

As he continued to catch snippets of the different conversations, another quiet sound caught his attention. It was some kind of mechanical whirring, and Peter’s eyes widened with surprise and tentative delight when he saw that it was a robot. A big one, taller than him, rolling smoothly across the floor with a tray of tall stainless steel tumblers held tightly by one large, metal arm.

“Dum-E!” Tony called to the robot as it approached, “You glorious hunk of gears, did you make those for us?” The man addressed the bot like it was a particularly beloved pet, waving it over. The robot chirped in a way that could only be described as cheerful, bobbing his arm just slightly and rattling the glasses on the tray. A dark red liquid sloshed over the side of several glasses.

“Whoa, no, don’t nod, just bring them over. Good job.” Tony passed the glasses around, and Peter stared into the one Rhodey passed him with a slightly sick sensation in his stomach.

“Um… what is this?” Peter asked as he eyed the red liquid, hoping against hope that it wasn’t what he very much suspected it was. He was still getting used to the whole vampire thing, he wasn't sure he was quite ready for _that_ yet. How long could vampires go without drinking blood, anyway? He should probably ask.

Sam just smiled slightly, looking at him with a distinctly mischievous gleam in his eye. “A bloody Mary.”

“Yeah, um, that doesn’t really answer my question, and I actually have _more_ questions now…”

Tony smacked Sam upside the back of the head. “Stop scaring my newbie! Don’t worry kid, it’s just a smoothie.”

“Oh.” Peter looked at the drink again, relieved. He took a tentative sip. “Cherry?”

“And a little bit of O positive, but don’t let that disturb you.”

He didn’t know if he should laugh or gag - although, to his surprise, the smoothie really wasn't half bad, blood and all - so settled for looking around at all of them again. “Is, uh, this everyone?" He asked, fishing randomly for something to say. "Or is there more?”

“In general, or just in our group?”

Peter added more questions to his list. “This group, I guess.”

Natasha did a quick headcount. "Looks like we're only missing Clint."

"Anyone check the local dumpsters?" From the way the others reacted to Tony's question, Peter gathered that this might just be one of those jokes born out of truth.

Natasha shook her head, almost imperceptibly, but instead of answering chose to address Peter. “There must be more you want to know,” she prompted him, leaning back and getting comfortable. “Other than Bruce's study habits, I mean. While we wait for Clint to show up, you might as well air some of your concerns. I'd promise we don't bite but, well...”

Peter was stymied (and a little unnerved) at first, the combined effect of the expanded audience of vampires all staring eagerly at him causing his mind to suddenly go very unhelpfully blank, but then pop culture saved him and questions started spilling out. “What happens if you go out in the daylight? Do you—”

Tony put up a hand in warning, looking thunderous. “So help me, if you ask me if I sparkle, I will literally rip your arm off.”

Peter looked frightened and horrified, but Bucky just patted his shoulder in a consoling matter. “Don’t worry, if he does you can just stick it back on.”

He could honestly not tell if the guy was kidding - he did, after all, have a metal arm. “I'll, um, keep that in mind. So like… what about the whole mirrors, reflection thing?”

Next to Tony, Bruce started snickering. Tony immediately whapped him on the shoulder. “Shut up!”

Peter looked between the two of them in confusion. “What?”

Bruce answered while Tony looked mutinous. “So, back in the old days, mirrors were backed with silver. And for some reason or another, we couldn’t see our reflections in silver. Something about it being a pure metal or whatever, I’ve been meaning to research it.”

“Maybe if you stopped going back to college,” Tony muttered waspishly, but Bruce ignored him.

“Anyway, around the time they switched to aluminum backing, Tony was kind of in the middle of a workshop binge, and he didn’t go out in public for like twelve years.”

Peter’s eyes went wide as he looked at Tony, who was looking distinctly annoyed and rolling his eyes. “You didn’t see anybody for twelve _years_?”

He just shrugged. “I lost track of time.”

Bruce continued as if there was nothing strange about that comment, “So the first time I dragged him out of his lab and he went out in public, we went to the mall to catch him up on things, and he had to pee. He waits until a bathroom is empty, since he didn’t want anyone noticing his lack of reflection, goes in, and—”

“And I screamed, okay? I don’t know why you still find this story so funny.”

Bruce was… well, he was giggling. That was definitely the word for it. “Because I could hear you from the other side of the mall! You literally scared four children so bad they were crying!”

Tony, looking grumpy and sulky now, scowled at him. “It wasn’t my fault! If you’d been used to a completely empty bathroom your whole life, and suddenly another guy is right there, you’d scream too!”

Bruce was still giggling, and Peter wasn’t sure if he should laugh or not. He decided to just go with his next question.

“Do I have to sleep in a coffin?”

Steve answered this one, “No, that’s mostly just silly lore, but like most of the myths about us, there is some truth to it.”

“How?”

“Have you noticed that all of your senses have improved?”

Peter nodded vigorously, “Yeah, totally. It’s like I’m constantly dialed up to eleven.”

“Makes sleeping kind of a nightmare, right? You wake up to every little thing, if you manage to sleep at all. And the thing is, modern day coffins are pretty well lined. They’re meant to be able to seal up tight, so they do a good job at not just blocking out sounds and smells, but also light. And sunlight _can_ be deadly for us, if we get too much of it or go out without protection."

"Bruce and I are working on that," Tony chimed in. "Super strength sunblock."

Steve sent him a smirk and a glance then continued, "So a nice, comfortable, protected place for us to sleep is pretty great. But they’re definitely not necessary.”

“Especially here,” Natasha added. “Every window is shielded and all of the living areas are soundproofed, with a little extra for the bedrooms.”

Tony looked proud of himself as he commented, “It’s so you can have sex as loud as you want and nobody will be able to shame you for it in the morning.”

Pepper slapped a hand over his mouth and leaned in close, “Maybe not, but the person you’re having sex with definitely can.” She sent an apologetic gaze to Peter as Tony started snickering behind her hand. “Don’t mind him, he’s always like this.”

Peter could feel himself blushing, except that he couldn’t blush, and wasn’t that a weird contradiction. “You two seem like you’ve been together a long time.”

Pepper smiled at that, nodding as she ran a hand through Tony’s hair and smiled at him. “We have. It’s been—”

Tony interrupted, looking very proud of himself, “Eighty-seven years, three months, and sixteen days.”

“You can’t count the ten years I spent being your assistant.” Pepper rolled her eyes, but it was far more fond than exasperated.

“Yes I can.”

It was very clear that they were on the brink of getting into an argument when they were interrupted by a noise, and all heads turned towards it.

A door down the hall creaked open and a man in a rumpled purple t-shirt and sweatpants shuffled out. He was barefoot and sporting the worst case of bedhead Peter had ever seen (and Peter had recently been a teenager, he knew bedhead). Behind the man, close at his heels, trotted a golden retriever that had clearly seen better days. Peter wondered if it was a vampire too - could dogs become vampires?

“Where have you been?” Natasha demanded, at the same time Sam asked, “Dude, what happened to you?”

The man didn’t answer, possibly because he was still asleep, but as soon as the newcomer reached the main room Peter jumped off the couch and strode forward to greet him, hand outstretched.

"Hi, I'm Peter," he introduced himself. "Sorry if we woke you up, Mr. Stark was just—"

The man frowned as he peered first at Peter’s hand and then his face, then spun around and went back into the room he'd just emerged from.

“W—what did I do?” Peter asked, worried he’d offended him.

“Just give it a sec,” Bucky replied, a smirk on his face as he crouched down and ruffled the dog’s ears.

The sounds of rummaging and then a drawer slamming shut echoed from the bedroom, and the man appeared in the doorway again. This time Peter could see a bit of purple wire looped around his ear - a hearing aid. Oh. Probably hadn't woken him up then. That was a relief.

"Hey Clint!" Tony said cheerfully, now that the man could hear them. "Where've you been?"

Clint yawned. "Taking a nap."

"You've been in there for six months," Bruce pointed out.

Clint shrugged. "I was tired." He flopped down on the sofa next to Natasha.

Peter couldn’t help it… he started laughing. Clint’s dog, meanwhile, had finished making the rounds, getting pats from everyone - when it came Peter's turn he noticed the name 'Lucky' engraved on his collar - and jumped up on the couch next to his owner with a huff, getting comfortable.

Clint sighed as he stared up at the ceiling. “I’m hungry.”

Without a word, Natasha flopped her wrist across his mouth.

“No, I mean I want pizza.”

“Wait, we can eat?” Peter blurted out, yet another point he’d not been clear on. The smoothie drinks, that made sense, but he had no idea how digestion worked, or didn't, in this new state of being.

Bucky shrugged. “Technically, we don’t need to. But we still can, and Tony’s kind of a hedonist—”

“Don’t you dare say it like I didn’t improve your life with food, Barnes.”

“—so we eat if we want to. And yeah, alright, it’s nice.”

"Which brings me to the _most important thing_ you need to know," Tony began, in a tone of utmost seriousness. Peter snapped to attention immediately.

"Garlic."

Peter blinked at Tony.

Apparently this was not the reaction the older man had expected. “Do you have any idea how angry I was when I found out that the whole garlic thing _isn’t_ because it’ll kill me if I eat it?”

“It… it’s not?”

“No! Apparently it’s because garlic has a strong odor and that’s supposed to ward vampires off because of our sense of smell. I SPENT ALL THAT TIME NOT EATING GARLIC FOR LITERALLY NO REASON. Kid, I am _Italian_. Do you have any idea how hard it is to avoid garlic in _Italy_?!” He shook his head, more than a little theatrically. "No one should have to go through what I did."

“Whoa, that’s awful!” Peter gasped, wide-eyed. He tried to imagine a world in which Mr. Delmar’s sandwiches were permanently off-limits. It didn’t even bear thinking about. “How long did it take you to figure that out?”

“Oh, um, you know, I don’t remember precisely…” Tony replied, suddenly strangely evasive. “Time really does start to blur together—”

“It was a week.” Rhodey interjected, with a long-suffering air. “One week, while we were on vacation. Dude, you have got to get over it.”

A tumbler clattered loudly to the floor and Peter spun around to find Steve and Bucky staring at Tony, twin expressions of shock on their faces. Evidently this was something of a revelation to the other members of the coven.

“Yeah, and it was the worst week of my un-life!” Tony shot back, undaunted.

“I thought— I mean I just assumed it had been _years_.” Steve said, mostly to himself, clearly still processing this new information. “Decades, even, the way he goes on about it…”

“It _felt_ like decades!” Tony insisted.

Bucky just shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“Welcome to my world.” Rhodey sighed.

Pepper leaned forward and whispered to Peter, “Lemme tell you, when he discovered garlic again? I really missed that week.”

Tony stopped glaring stubbornly at Rhodey and whirled around to gape in betrayed astonishment at this latest affront. “What exactly are you implying, Miss Potts?”

Pepper grinned and batted her eyelashes at him. “Just that I’m glad there have been some significant improvements in dental hygiene technologies over the past few decades, darling.” Then, in a conspiratorial whisper to Peter, “Seriously, it was like a garlic brothel in his mouth. I was almost relieved on the nights he fell asleep in his lab.”

If there'd been any blood still running through Tony's veins, it was clear he'd have turned bright red.

Peter took pity on him and changed the subject. “So like, where… um, or _when_ , are you guys from?” he asked hesitantly.

What followed honestly reminded Peter of that scene from Finding Nemo, when all the fish in the tank were introducing themselves.

“Norse Iceland.” (This was Thor, who 100% looked like he came from Norse Iceland. And perhaps was a demigod.)

"Russia." ("Soviet? Imperial?" Tony guessed. "You're gonna have to tell us sometime, Nat." Natasha just shrugged, a sly smile on her face. Evidently this was a _thing_.)

"Brooklyn!" (This enthusiastic response came in stereo, from both Steve and Bucky. Peter gave them a nod of recognition and grinned. "Queens.")

And so it went.

They really were an impressively varied group. Which led Peter to another question. "Is this safe?" Peter asked. "I mean, so many of you together - doesn't anyone notice none of you aging?"

Natasha gave Peter a knowing smirk. "We _told_ you - people never notice the things they should."

"There _was_ a conspiracy theory going around a few years back that Thor's an immortal," Tony conceded. "Dude's been in so many damn paintings over the centuries."

"Indeed!" Thor agreed, beaming. "I was on _BuzzFeed_."

Tony rolled his eyes, but there was no real irritation behind it. "And they say _I'm_ the vain one..."

Rhodey laughed. "You _are_ the vain one." He gave Tony a playful bop with one of the couch's throw pillows and a minor pillow fight broke out.

"Besides, this is New York!" Steve pointed out while they were scuffling, his evident pride in the statement causing a bit of old-timey Brooklyn accent to slip out - New _Yawk_. "Anything can happen here. And does. And it's just another day in the greatest city in the world."

That was a fair point. Peter had seen some pretty weird shit take place on the subway and none of the other riders had ever even batted an eye.

Batted, _bat_ -ted…

Oh no. He couldn't ask that, it was too ridiculous. Besides, he would know, right? If he could…

"Can we turn into bats?" The question burst out before he could stop himself.

"That _would_ be cool," Steve answered in a kind voice. "But unfortunately no."

"Hey now, the kid might be onto something!"

Steve turned and looked sternly at Tony. "And you and Bruce are _not_ going to do one of your mad science experiments to try and make it happen."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Why do you always assume… that was _one_ time. I _meant_ it's a good idea for the party. You know, decorations? Setting the scene for our festivities? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Oh good!" Thor cheered. "We _are_ having a Halloween party!"

"It's Halloween?" Clint peeled an eye open and muttered to Natasha, puzzled.

"Everyone's here, we might as well." Tony answered Thor. "Anyway, I can whip up some mechanical bats to flap around. Really get that spooky mood going." He smirked at Steve and his next words were dripping with sarcasm. "If that's not too _mad science_ for you."

Peter sat back and listened as the vampires began to debate (and bicker) anew over Halloween decorations and party themes and costumes. He was going to have a _lot_ to tell Ned.


End file.
